An Emotional Scene
by RoseAngelx
Summary: /It feels as though he is watching through a viewscreen, like he is not really here. Everything sounds far away. None of it feels real./ The scene immediately following Khan blacking out at the end of Star Trek: Into Darkness.


**Author's Note** : So, I watched _Amok Time_ the other day, and then re-watched that last five minutes over and over about a dozen times (and any of you who have seen it know why). It got me thinking about _Into Darkness_ : we saw Spock's response to Kirk's death, and to Kirk waking up, but not to the in between. So, this happened. I'm sure it's been done at least a thousand times, not to mention I'm a bit behind the times given we have a new (absolutely beautiful) movie now, but what can I say, I couldn't help myself. Any quotes you recognise come from _Amok Time_.

* * *

 **An Emotional Scene**

"Spock!"

Lieutenant Uhura's voice gets acknowledged only in a distant part of Spock's brain. He registers that she has spoken, that she is trying to get his attention, but it is unsuccessful. A greater part of Spock's mind is on Khan. His fists collide with the man's face, over, and over, and over. He barely registers the pain in his knuckles.

Khan is trapped beneath him, unable to fight back. Spock is the one in control of the situation. He could end this now. One well-aimed fist to Khan's chin could render him unconscious. It is the logical thing to do. Spock can knock Khan out, and they can beam aboard the Enterprise. Khan can be returned to his cryotube, alive but unable to cause any more harm to anyone.

"Spock, stop!"

However, this is not logical. Right now, Spock's behaviour is in no way governed by logic. The image of Kirk's lifeless eyes, of Kirk's hand sliding down the glass, is seared into Spock's mind. Spock does not care to keep Khan alive. What Spock wants is quite the opposite. He wants to feel the life leave Khan's body, just as Khan forced the life to leave Kirk's.

It is not logic. It is pure emotion. It is as it was on Vulcan, when the Vulcan children finally succeeded in eliciting an emotional response from him. It is as it was when Kirk returned to the Enterprise after Spock had marooned him, when Kirk had accused him of having never truly loved his mother. It was his father, both times, whose voice had broken through the madness in Spock's mind, who had forced him back to reality and forced him to step back before he became a murderer. Spock's father is not here to stop him now.

He will kill Khan.

"Stop!"

There will be consequences. While no one will mourn for Khan, there will be consequences. Spock is emotionally compromised. He is not fit to be aboard a Federation starship. If he proves himself capable of murdering a man in cold blood, when there was another option, he will guarantee his dismissal. These consequences would be important to a logical mind. Logically, they can, and should, be avoided. To an emotional mind, they do not matter. They exist in a time After Kirk. Spock cannot imagine such a time. Spock cannot imagine a future, cannot imagine anything beyond the present moment, as his fists slam into Khan's face.

"He's our only chance to save Kirk!"

It's the captain's name that finally gets Spock's attention. His head snaps up to look at Uhura. Her eyes are watering. He cannot easily distinguish between all the emotions expressed on her face. _Save Kirk._ It is the only thing more important than the illogical desire to stop Khan's heart. It is the only thing that matters.

He doesn't understand, not completely. He has not had time to process, to consider how Khan's continued existence could bring his captain, his _friend_ , back from the dead. However, if Uhura claims that this will work, then he will trust her word.

He looks down at the body beneath him. Khan's eyes roll back in his head. He is undoubtedly in tremendous pain; his face is bruised, bleeding, but he is alive. Spock looks to Uhura again, and then grabs the front of Khan's shirt, lifting him up before aiming his fist beneath Khan's jaw. Khan slumps the moment Spock's fist makes contact.

Uhura's body sags too, but in relief. When Spock looks at her, he can see that she is panting, despite having not exerted nearly as much energy as he had. She is clearly experiencing a whirlpool of feelings, but among them, he can identify one: hope. He sees her raise her communicator to her mouth. "Uhura to Enterprise. Beam us up."

They materialise in the transporter room in the same positions as they were. Spock's knees are still planted either side of Khan's body, pinning him to the floor despite the fact that there is no way now that he could get up. His hand is still fisted in Khan's shirt. His grip does not relax until he feels Uhura's hand cover his, gently prying his fingers loose, murmuring words like, "Spock, it's okay." Her voice sounds strangely far away, despite the fact that she is right by his side.

A security team was awaiting their arrival in the transporter room. The moment Spock has released Khan, they move over, hauling him to his feet (or, as much to his feet as an unconscious man can be). Spock gets to his feet too, takes his place behind the group. None of the security personnel try to stop him.

They march quickly and efficiently through halls lined with crewmembers, whose gazes flicker between Khan and Spock and the security team with mixtures of interest and confusion. It occurs to Spock that many of these crewmembers do not know what happened, beyond the undeniable facts that the Enterprise was falling from the sky and then it was not. They do not know how their captain sacrificed his life to save theirs. They do not know the fear he confessed to feeling as his life was coming to an end. They do not know how close Spock came to killing the only person who can bring Kirk back. Depending on how quickly word spreads, they might not know that Kirk needs to be brought back at all.

Doctor McCoy is waiting for them when they reach sickbay. The expression on his face is hard. He jerks his head towards an empty bed, and Spock remains back, watching as the security team move Khan to it. McCoy none too gently forces Khan's sleeve up to take a sample of his blood. "Keep him here and make sure he stays down," he says shortly. The security team nod in acknowledgement.

Spock watches for a moment, and then his eyes move through the medbay, settling after a moment on a cryotube in the centre of the room. He takes a step towards it, and realises when he is close enough to see that the person inside is not one of Khan's crew, but is Kirk.

He is in there to preserve brain functioning, Spock realises, to buy them enough time to prepare Khan's blood. It was clever of the doctor to think of it. It could work, as long as Kirk's brain was not too badly damaged before McCoy got to him. They will not know the amount of damage sustained until he wakes up. If he wakes up.

Spock takes slow steps towards the cryotube until he is close enough to stand by its side. His movements are at odds with the frantic actions of those around him. He can hear people talking, and can see McCoy doing something at his desk to the sample of Khan's blood, but it all gets registered in a distant part of Spock's mind. His eyes stay on Kirk's face. He finds that he cannot look away.

It feels as though he is watching through a viewscreen, like he is not really here. Everything sounds far away. None of it feels real.

Someone has closed Kirk's eyes. He almost looks as though he might be asleep. On the one hand, Spock is grateful, to see Kirk looking at peace, rather than staring, unseeingly, into the distance. On the other hand, it is wrong, to not see Kirk's bright eyes and the warm look that is usually on his face. It is wrong to see him lying lifelessly in a cryotube in sickbay. Kirk hates sickbay.

After several minutes – for perhaps the first time in his life, Spock does not know the exact number – McCoy says, "It's ready", and Carol Marcus pushes past Spock to deactivate the cryogenic sequence on the cryotube. A nurse joins her to help get Kirk out of the cryotube and connected to various monitors that show no pulse, no respiration. Another nurse leans past Spock's side to hand something to Doctor McCoy. People try to work around him, but he is standing right next to the cryotube.

"Damnit, Spock, stop hovering," McCoy snaps.

"My feet are firmly on the floor," Spock says without thinking. Even his own voice sounds far away.

McCoy mutters something in an exasperated tone that Spock does not quite catch, and then Carol Marcus' hands on his arms, gently guiding him back out of the way. Spock would normally protest to the touch. This time, he cannot find it in him to resist.

McCoy holds up a hypo that must contain the serum, synthesised from Khan's blood. He presses it to Kirk's neck. Kirk hates hypos. It is wrong to not see him flinch.

"You're not dying on me this easily," Spock hears McCoy mutter under his breath, too quiet for human ears.

In contrast with the frantic movements from moments ago, the room is now still, silent. People watch with baited breath. There is no immediate reaction to the hypo. The monitors still show no life signs. Kirk does not as much as twitch.

It is Spock who breaks the silence, precisely six point seven minutes later. "How long should it take to work?" he asks.

"I don't know," McCoy replies.

"An approximate answer is acceptable."

"I said I don't know." McCoy's voice is sharper this time. Spock draws his eyes away from Kirk for the first time to look at the doctor instead. "I haven't exactly worked with superblood before, have I? It took the tribble about half an hour, but it hadn't died of radiation poisoning, and it –" He cuts himself off abruptly at a sound from the monitors, and Spock, too, looks up at them immediately.

Slowly, steadily, Kirk's pulse starts to rise.

It is still slow, too slow, but it is there. Kirk's heart is beating. Kirk is, impossibly, alive.

Someone lets out a sound that is somewhere between an exclamation and a laugh, and the hard look melts away from McCoy's face. Spock's legs suddenly feel weak. A feeling of warmth unfurls in his abdomen, spreading outwards through his body, to his fingers and his toes. It no longer feels as though Spock is watching through a viewscreen. He is here, and this is real.

The captain is alive.

Jim is alive.

A smile – of all things, a smile – pulls over his lips before he can stop it. He cannot remember smiling before, certainly not like this. He can feel it in the muscles of his cheeks – like pain, but not an aversive kind.

Jim is alive.

McCoy looks over at him, and Spock quickly regains his composure, letting a calm expression cover his face. He is in control of his emotions. Vulcans do not smile. McCoy raises an eyebrow, but says nothing, grabbing his tricorder. "He's going to need a lot more of Khan's blood," he says. "I need to do a transfusion."

The room breaks into movement again, and this time, Spock does the logical thing, and he stays out of the way.

OoO

Spock makes all the necessary calls in preparation for their return to Starfleet Headquarters and Kirk's transfer to another medical facility before he returns to sickbay. By then, Kirk is no longer surrounded by staff; most of the nurses have moved to help with other patients. The only one still by Kirk's side is Doctor McCoy, who is monitoring Kirk's vitals. Spock gets the impression that Kirk does not need to be monitored as closely as McCoy is monitoring him, but he does not comment.

He moves to Kirk's bedside, eyes flickering first over the screen (Kirk's heart rate has increased since Spock was in here last, though it is still slower than that of the average human), and then over Kirk's face. He is not awake.

"How is he?" Spock asks, glancing up at McCoy.

"For a man that was dead not an hour ago, he's doing pretty damn well," McCoy replies. "You should see what Khan's blood can do."

Khan's name makes Spock's eyes flicker over to the bed where he was last. It is now empty.

McCoy follows his gaze, and then says, "He's in a crytotube. And he's staying there, permanently."

Spock nods once, and then looks back to Kirk. "When will he wake?"

"Not soon, I'm afraid. We're keeping him in an induced coma until we can work out what kind of effect the transfusion has had on his system. After that – it could still be several days before he comes out of it. Maybe a couple of weeks."

A couple of weeks is a long time for Kirk to be unconscious. It is made to seem only longer by the fact that McCoy is not certain. A couple of weeks is an estimation. It could be longer still.

But he will wake. It is more than they could have asked for.

It is McCoy who breaks the silence again. "You know," he says, and when Spock looks over at him, he notices there is an odd sort of smile on his face. "I've never seen you act like that before."

Spock frowns. "To which act are you referring?"

"You, _smiling_ ," McCoy says, and Spock finally identifies the smile on his face – he is teasing. He's seen the expression on Kirk's face. On McCoy's, it makes Spock feel quite uncomfortable. McCoy continues, "When Jim's heart started beating again, you looked like you were on the verge of giving us an emotional scene that would have brought the house down."

Spock folds his hands calmly behind his back, standing tall. He is in control now, far more than he was earlier. It is much easier to keep a calm expression on his face. "I was merely expressing my quite logical relief that Starfleet had not lost a highly proficient captain."

McCoy scoffs. "Of course, Spock," he says. "Your reaction was quite logical."

Spock fails to pick up on the sarcasm. "Thank you, Doctor," he says, and then he turns to take his leave. They will land soon. He needs to return to the bridge.

Behind him, McCoy says, "In a pig's eye!"

Spock blinks, and then turns to look over his shoulder. "Your choice of idiom is quite illogical. I fail to see what relevance swine have to the current conversation."

McCoy sighs, rolling his eyes. "God knows why Jim puts up with you," he mutters. "Oh, and don't call him a highly proficient captain to his face. God knows his ego is going to be big enough now that he's come back from the dead."

Spock has no reply to that. His gaze flickers to Kirk's face, then over his neck and chest. He can see the slightest rise and fall of his chest with every slow breath he takes. It provides a strange sense of comfort, which is quite illogical, because he knows Kirk is breathing from the monitor. A muscle twitches by the corner of his lips.

He can tell McCoy's eyes are on him again. He turns and makes his exit before he gets accused of another emotional response.


End file.
